The Influence of Yard Trucks on Berth Operations in Smaller Container Terminals

Nowadays smaller container terminals are facing an increase in traffic and ship sizes and are consequently subject to extreme pressure form ship-owners that require rapid and efficient transhipment operations in the port, the achievement of which is only possible with the assignment of the proper type and number of quay cranes to each ship and with a good level of synergy between the cranes and the transfer mechanisation. The latter has a significant impact on the cranes working and waiting times and affects the entirety of berth operations. Existing terminals that cannot afford to invest in new modern horizontal transport technologies are most commonly using yard trucks that provide less efficient port transfer operations. That is why in the paper a simulation approach has been used in order to determine how a different number of yard trucks assigned to a single quay crane can affect the productivity of that crane and the productivity of the whole berth subsystem

Impacts of a Tracking and Tracing System for Containers in a Port-Based Supply Chain

Purpose - Intermodal transport chains often appear as “black boxes” to the cargo owners and their clients, who lose track of the container until it arrives at the final end of the chain. The paper discusses why a tracking and tracing system should represent an important added value for them. Design/methodology/approach - We describe here the configuration and features of a novel low-cost system to track and trace containers in an intermodal supply chain, provide information to shippers regarding delays and other unexpected events, and assist terminal operations accordingly. We then analyze the positive impacts of such a system over the entire supply chain, identifying the requirements of the main chain actors regarding the availability of information and how the proposed system contributes to the fulfillment of those requirements. Findings - The visibility of containers throughout the entire supply chain provides multiple benefits for shippers, terminals and transport providers. Research limitations/implications - The operational and economic benefits of the system are clear, but the lack of historical data does not allow for a quantitative estimation of those foreseen benefits. Practical implications - Intermodal terminals might see this type of information systems as an opportunity to generate added value for their customers, including shippers and carriers. In a scenario with high competition levels between terminals, this added value could represent the competitive advantage necessary to guarantee the growth of a terminal without requiring expensive investments and costs. Originality/value - The paper describes the benefits provided by the system to the main stakeholders of the intermodal supply chain and provides some conclusions with respect to those benefits and to future developments.Fundación de Investigación de la Universidad de Sevilla FIUS-2284Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (España) TEC2013-47286-C3-3-

An advanced risk analysis approach for container port safety evaluation

Risk analysis in seaports plays an increasingly important role in ensuring port operation reliability, maritime transportation safety and supply chain distribution resilience. However, the task is not straightforward given the challenges, including that port safety is affected by multiple factors related to design, installation, operation and maintenance and that traditional risk assessment methods such as quantitative risk analysis cannot sufficiently address uncertainty in failure data. This paper develops an advanced Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA) approach through incorporating Fuzzy Rule-Based Bayesian Networks (FRBN) to evaluate the criticality of the hazardous events (HEs) in a container terminal. The rational use of the Degrees of Belief (DoB) in a fuzzy rule base (FRB) facilitates the implementation of the new method in Container Terminal Risk Evaluation (CTRE) in practice. Compared to conventional FMEA methods, the new approach integrates FRB and BN in a complementary manner, in which the former provides a realistic and flexible way to describe input failure information while the latter allows easy updating of risk estimation results and facilitates real-time safety evaluation and dynamic risk-based decision support in container terminals. The proposed approach can also be tailored for wider application in other engineering and management systems, especially when instant risk ranking is required by the stakeholders to measure, predict and improve their system safety and reliability performance

Pricing Scheme of Ocean Carrier for Inbound Container Storage for Assistance of Container Supply Chain Finance

The aim of this paper is to investigate the pricing scheme of ocean carrier for inbound container storage so as to assist container supply chain finance. In this paper, how an ocean carrier should set price of inbound container storage to the customer while facing the contract from the container terminal operator is first analyzed. Then, two different contract systems, the free-time contract system which is widely used in practice and the free-space contract system which is newly developed recently, are considered. In the two different contract systems, inbound container storage pricing models are constructed, and accordingly optimal solution approaches for the ocean carrier are provided. For comparison purpose, some numerical experiments for the two different contract systems are conducted to investigate the effects of the container terminal operator’s decision on the system outcomes. Numerical experiments show that (1) the carrier is more flexible in the free-space contract system and can receive more profit by using the free-storage-space as a pooling storage system and (2) the free-space contract system benefits both the carrier in profit and the busy terminal in traffic control

TRIPS and the Rise of Counterfeiting: A Comparative Examination of Trademark Protection and Border Measures in the European Union and the Gulf Cooperation Council

n 1995 the World Trade Organization’s TRIPS Agreement came into effect, extending minimum standards of protection to intellectual property rights (IPRs) in the European Union and the Gulf Cooperation Council States. The article sets out the problems of harmonization resulting from the grafting of Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) onto the legal framework of GCC States. Despite the presence of the GCC Customs Union, its individual countries have witnessed varying degrees of TRIPS-acquiescence. This includes varying degrees of effectiveness with border measures as a means of combating the transportation of counterfeit goods. The article provides a discussion on why effective protection and enforcement of IP laws are necessary to prevent counterfeiting in the GCC States, drawing on the laws of the European Union for comparative purposes. Furthermore, the article considers how border control functions as an important means of enforcement in fighting against the expanding transit of counterfeit goods

A rostering approach to minimize health risks for workers: An application to a container terminal in the Italian port of Genoa

The evolving safety regulation is pushing seaports to comply with safety measures for workers performing heavy loads handling and repetitive movements. This paper proposes a risk-aware rostering approach in maritime container terminals, i.e., it addresses the rostering problem of minimizing and balancing workers’ risk in such terminals. To this end, a mixed integer mathematical programming model incorporating workforce risks is proposed, considering constraints such as the satisfaction of the workforce demand to perform the terminal operations, the worker-task compatibility and restrictions on the sequence of tasks assigned to the same worker. The model has been successfully applied to plan workforce over a six months horizon in a real container terminal located in Northern Italy, the Southern European Container Hub (SECH) in Genoa. As the workforce demand in SECH terminal is available at most two weeks in advance, a rolling horizon planning approach is devised. Experimental tests on real data provided by SECH terminal over a six months planning horizon highlight the effectiveness of the approach - the maximum monthly risk for workers is reduced by 33.9% compared to the current planning – and suitability to other container terminal contexts. Moreover, the model is applicable to a broad range of port situations, and robust enough to need little adaptation

Ocean container transport : an underestimated and critical link in global supply chain performance

With supply chains distributed across global markets, ocean container transport now is a critical element of any such supply chain. We identify key characteristics of ocean container transport from a supply chain perspective. We find that unlike continental (road) transport, service offerings tend to be consolidated in few service providers, and a strong focus exists on maximization of capital intensive resources. Based on the characteristics of the ocean container transport supply chain, we list a number of highly relevant and challenging research areas and associated questions

Revisiting port performance measurement: A hybrid multi-stakeholder framework for the modelling of port performance indicators

This study develops a new port performance measurement model by taking the perspectives from different port stakeholders. The novelty lies in the modelling of interdependencies among port performance measures, and the combination of weights of interdependent measures with both qualitative and quantitative evaluations of the measures from multiple stakeholders for quantitative port performance measurement. It represents an effective performance measurement tool and offers a diagnostic instrument for performance evaluation and/or monitoring of ports and terminals so as to satisfy different requirements of various port stakeholders in a flexible manner. © 201

Masterplanning at the Port of Dover: The Use of Discrete-Event Simulation in Managing Road Traffic

The Port of Dover is Europe’s busiest ferry port, handling £119 billion or 17% of the UK’s annual trade in goods. The Port is constrained geographically to a small area and faces multiple challenges, both short- and long-term, with managing the flow of five million vehicles per year to/from mainland Europe. This article describes some of the work that the Port is doing to minimize the impact of port road traffic on the local community and environment using discrete-event simulation modeling. Modeling is particularly valuable in identifying where future bottlenecks are likely to form within the Port due to projected growth in freight traffic and comparing the effectiveness of different interventions to cope with growth. One of our key findings is that space which can be used flexibly is far more valuable than dedicated space. This is supported by the much greater reduction in traffic congestion that is expected to be achieved given a 10% increase in freight traffic by reallocating space at the front of the system to temporarily hold vehicles waiting to pass through border control and check-in compared to extending the amount of space for ferry embarkation at the rear of the system. The importance of flexible space has implications for port design that can be applied more broadly. Modeling is also useful in identifying critical thresholds for vehicle processing times that would cause the system to become overwhelmed. Increasing the check-in time by just three to five minutes, for example, would completely exceed the Port’s capacity and produce indefinite queueing. This finding has important implications for Brexit planning. From a wider context, the research presented here nicely illustrates how simulation can be used to instill more evidence-based thinking into port masterplanning and support “green port” and other corporate sustainability initiatives